Windows XP tutorijali (EN)

Create an Email Template in Outlook 2003

If you have an email you send out every day that contains the same information, or a form that requires users to dictate answers to the same questions – you can create a template in Outlook to help save you time.
The template mode will not be available if you have Word set as your email editor, so the first thing we’ll need to do is turn that option off.
Open Outlook Options by choosing Tools \ Options from the menu. Choose the Mail Format tab, and make sure to uncheck the boxes to use Word.





Now to create our template. Just open a new mail message, choose the person(s) to send it to, a subject line, and a message body. Now you should be able to choose File \ Save As from the menu.




Choose Outlook Template (.oft) as the file type, and pick a folder and file name to save the template as.





Now when you go to the location where you saved your template you will have an Outlook Template icon. Just double-click the icon, hit send and you are done! You could also open the template through the File \ New \ Choose Form \ User Templates option as well.

Create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Versions & Vista

DEO PRVI........





One of the cool features in Windows 7 is XP Mode. However, it’s only available for Windows 7 Professional and above, leaving Home Edition and Vista users out of luck. Today we’ll show you how to create your own XP Mode to run on Vista or Windows 7 Home Premium.
How does this work?
Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows Vista are not licensed to run the free XP Mode download from Microsoft. In fact, if you select Home Premium on the XP Mode download site, you will see the following message:





Last week we showed you how VMware Player could help you run XP Mode without hardware virtualization. Even VMware Player doesn’t have a link to import XP Mode if you’re computer is running 7 Home Premium or Vista.





However, if you have a legal copy of Windows XP, then you can easily recreate XP Mode with the free VMware Player. This article will show you how quick and easy it is to get a virtual copy of XP running on any computer, even if it’s running 7 Home Premium or Windows Vista.
Getting Started
First, download and install VMware Player (link below). It is a free download, but requires registration.





You may see some prompts about installing drivers; simply approve them. We didn’t see them on our latest test, but have in the past. When you are finished installing VMware Player, you will have to restart your computer.




Create your own XP Mode
Once your computer is rebooted, start up VMware Player and insert your Windows XP CD in your CD drive. In this example we used a copy of Windows XP Professional, but it would work the same with any edition of XP.
In VMware Player, click the link at the top that says “Create a New Virtual Machine.”





VMware automatically detects your Windows XP CD, and says it will install it with Easy install. This will let you install XP with only 5 clicks! Click Next to continue.





Now enter your XP product key, and name and password of your choice. We named it XP Mode to make it obvious what this virtual machine is for!





Here VMware will automatically enter your operating system’s name and the default location to save the files. Simply press next to accept the defaults, or change them if you wish.





You can choose how large you want your virtual hard drive to be; the default is 40Gb, but you can choose a different size if you wish. Please note that the entire 40Gb will not be taken up on your hard drive. Our clean install only took up 1.4Gb on the computer.





That’s all the settings. You can review and make changes here, or simply press Finish to start installing XP.





From here on, VMware will take over. You do not need to click anything else until XP is fully installed! It will automatically run the installer, format the virtual hard drive,





Copies XP files to the hard drive,





And finishes the install.





Everything will work automatically, so you can literally leave it unattended while it’s installing. In our tests it took about 20 minutes to install. When it’s done, you’ll be presented with the Windows XP desktop ready for use!





VMware Player will automatically launch the VMware Tools installer to integrate your virtual XP with your computer. It may have to download or update the tools, so if you see the yellow banner at the bottom of your window simply click Update Tools or Install Tools depending on you situation.





The tools will automatically download and install, though you may have to approve an UAC prompt.





Once the tools are downloaded or updated, they should automatically run in XP. If not, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VMware Tools.





Now, simply run the Tools installer with the Typical setup type, and reboot XP when it’s finished.





Now your XP is fully installed and setup, so you can proceed to integrate with your computer just like XP Mode!
Integrate XP Mode in VMware Player with Windows 7 or Vista
The real advantage of the default XP Mode in Windows 7 is that the XP programs are fully integrated with their Windows 7 counterparts. You can run them seamlessly with other programs, copy between them, and even open and save files to the same folders.
Let’s set this up in VMware. Copy and paste from Windows 7 or Vista to XP in VMware is activated by default. To use your XP programs seamlessly with Windows 7, click VM on the top of the VMware window, and click “Enter Unity.”

Create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Versions & Vista


DEO DRUGI......



You can easily access any program or file in XP mode through a dedicated XP Mode Start Menu. When you hover over your Windows 7 Start button, a new button called “Windows XP Mode” will above it. Click there to access a full start menu from XP Mode right in Windows 7.





And it works the exact same in Windows Vista.





Here is an IE 6 window from XP running side-by-side with IE 8 in Windows 7, thanks to VMware Player!





And notice, this is guaranteed to work on any edition of Windows 7 or Vista, including Home versions.





By default, the virtualized windows will have a border and the VMware logo on their edge.





To remove this logo, click VM in the VMware player window, then settings. Click on the Options tab, and choose Unity on the left. Now uncheck the boxes that say “Show borders” and “Show badges.”





Without having the VMWare borders and badges give everything a more authentic XP Mode look and feel.





You can even use removable devices, such as flash drives, in XP in VMware Player. Whenever you connect a new device to your computer, VMware will remind you that you can add it to XP.





Simply click VM, then Removable Devices. Select your device name, and click Connect.




Save Files in XP Mode to My Documents in Windows 7 or Vista
By default, files created in XP in VMware Player will be saved inside the virtual machine. It’s more convenient if they’re saved directly to the My Documents folder in Windows 7 (or the Documents folder in Vista), so let’s change this. Click VM, then Settings. Click the Options tab, and then choose Shared Folders on the left. Now click the bullet for “Always enabled” and check the box for “Map as a network drive in Windows guests.”





Now click Add at the bottom of that window. This will let us add a shared folder.





Let’s add the My Documents folder from Windows 7 (or the Documents folder in Vista). Click Browse, and then select your My Documents folder. Click Ok, and then click Next.





Make sure the box is checked that says “Enable this share” and then click Finish. You can now close the settings window as well.





Back in XP, click Start, then right click on My Documents, and select

Properties.





Click Move to find the new My Documents folder.





Find the folder we just shared from Windows 7 or Vista by clicking My Computer, then the drive that says “Shared Folders on ‘vmware-host’” or something similar. Now select the folder we shared, Documents, and click Ok.





Click Ok in the main properties window. It may offer to copy the files from your old My Documents folder to the new one; choose Yes to make sure you have all of your documents in Windows 7.





Now, whenever you go to save a file in XP, it will automatically save in your My Documents folder on Windows 7 or Vista, depending on your circumstance. You can repeat the same process for any folder you wish, such as your My Pictures and My Music folders.
Conclusion
And that’s all there is to it! You now have a fully functioning copy of XP running right inside your 7 or Vista computer. Almost everything works the same as XP Mode in 7 Professional or Ultimate. The only difference is that you used your own copy of XP, but if you have an old copy already then it doesn’t cost you any more than XP Mode would. And, even if your computer is running Windows 7 Professional, you may find it easier to use a copy of XP you already own instead of importing XP Mode. VMware Player does a great job at integrating XP with your computer, and in our tests it worked as good or better than the actual XP Mode.
You can actually run Windows Virtual PC on any Windows 7 computer, even ones running Home Premium that aren’t eligible for XP Mode. You could install XP in it, then install Virtual PC’s integration components, and it will work exactly like the default XP Mode. However, we’ve found VMware’s solution easier to use and much faster to setup. If you would like to try this out, download Virtual PC at the link below (be sure to select Professional as your edition of Windows … even though Home Premium is licensed to run Virtual PC and can run it fine, the download isn’t offered by default).
Links

Download VMware Player 3


Download Windows Virtual PC if you wish to run XP in it

Customize Your Folder Icons in Windows XP

Scott pointed me in the direction of an interesting utility for Windows XP that will let you “skin” your icons by replacing the built-in folder icons with custom icons, and even assign a different color for different folders.
After installation, open the iColorFolder Skin Selector dialog to see a number of built-in skins to choose from. If you want to apply the look across all regular folders automatically, you’ll need to choose the option for “Use generic folder icon defined in the skin”.





Note that you’ll need to install the additional skin pack from the download page to see this particular icon.
By right-clicking on a folder in Windows Explorer, you can choose a different color from the new Color Label menu.





If you choose the “Custom…” item from the menu, you’ll be able to pick any icon you’d like for that folder, including the ability to browse for icons not shown.





The new colorized icons are definitely a lot more pleasant to look at.






You can actually change the default icon for almost any type of file by using the new Change Icon. This is actually a zip file, but I changed the icon to… not sure what that is.






The best part about this utility is that there’s no resident process taking up memory. It just uses the built-in mechanisms to set the icons and then exits.


Download iColorFolder from SourceForge

Customizing Your Icons in Windows XP

My new friend Sue asked me the other day how to customize icons on Windows XP, so I thought I’d write up all the ways to change the icons, both by using the built-in methods and also with additional software.
Changing My Computer, My Documents, and Recycle Bin Icons Manually
Right-click on the desktop and choose Properties, then on the Desktop tab you should choose the Customize Desktop button.





In the Desktop Items dialog you can select one of the icons and click the Change Icon button.





Now just click the Browse button, and pick whichever icon file you would prefer.





Change Icons for Specific Folders Manually
You can change the icon for many folders by right-clicking the folder and choosing Properties, and then clicking Change Icon on the Customize tab.





This method works by writing a hidden desktop.ini file into the folder that will contain text like this:

Kod:

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You could manually create or edit the file if you choose, instead of using the dialogs. The IconFile line can be adjusted to point to a custom icon file. If you are pointing to a .ico file you should change the IconIndex line to 0 instead.
Note that this isn’t available for all folders, for instance you can’t use this to change the icon for the Windows folder.
Using iColorFolder Skins to Customize Specific Folders Easily
You can use the previously reviewed iColorFolder application to load colored folders that can be applied to specific folders. You can also set the default folder icon using this tool.





Not only that, but this tool can be used to set the default icon for any file type, or easily change the icon for a specific folder to a different color, or a different icon altogether.






Manually Setting Specific Icons for Removable Drives
You can create a new file named autorun.inf in the root of any flash or USB drive, and then add the following section to it:

Kod:

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You’ll notice that the icon file is set to autorun.ico, which means for this file to work you would have to rename the icon file and add it to the root of the drive as well:





Your best bet is to make both of these files hidden so you don’t have to see them. Right-click on the files, choose Properties, and then check the box for “Hidden” as shown:





This does not work for regular hard drives, just for removable ones. Also note that the custom icon will show up on any Windows computer that you plug the removable drive into.
Change Icons for Regular File Types
If you want to change the icon for all those .txt files you have laying around, you can do so by going into yet another dialog (seems like they could have organized them into a single place)
Open up a copy of Windows Explorer and then choose Folder Options from the Tools menu.





Select the File Types tab, and then choose the file type you want to change and click the Advanced button.





In the “Edit File Type” dialog you can click the Change Icon button, and then select an icon just like you did above.





There are a few of the file types that won’t let you change the icon using this method… for instance you should not use this to change the icon for folders or drives or else things will go haywire. (or they did for me)
Change Icons for Application Shortcuts
You can customize the icon for any application icons, whether on the start menu, quick launch or desktop, by right-clicking on the shortcut and choosing Properties, then use “Change Icon” from the shortcut tab.






Use Windows Vista Style Drive Icons
You can also customize the drive icons in Windows XP to give them the same Vista bar graph underneath that shows the disk space.









Changing Special Icons like Control Panel, Drives, Folders, Printers, Etc
If you’d rather change all the different icons in one place, you can use the freeware IconTweaker application that gives you access to change pretty much any icon in Windows XP.
Click on the round “icons” icon on the left-hand panel, and then you can customize any of the built-in icons… just click the Change button.



And then click the Open button and pick the icon file you want to use.





There’s a lot more to this application, for instance you can use it to create a theme that you could re-apply later… or you could download icon themes and apply them.


Download IconTweaker from icontweaker.com

Defrag Multiple Hard Drives At Once In Windows

The Disk Defragment utility in Windows XP does not include a way to defragment all hard drives at the same time, which is inconvienient when you have more than one hard drive in your computer.
The method we are going to use is by creating a batch file to defragment all of the drives, one after the other.
The disk defrag utility in Windows XP can be triggered from the command line with the following syntax:

Kod:

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First, we’ll create a file named defragall.bat, and place it anywhere you like, as long as you’ll remember where it is. If you want to run it from the command line, you could place it in the \windows directory so that it will be available in the system path.
For each hard drive, add a line to the batch file. For instance, if we want to defragment drives C: , D: , and F: we will add these three lines:

Kod:

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To run the defrag, just either double-click on the batch file or start it from the command line.

Defragment Your System Files (Pagefile and Registry) in Windows XP

In the pursuit for performance, making sure your drive isn’t fragmented is a regular task. The problem is that Windows XP doesn’t allow certain system files to be defragmented without commercial software. What about free solutions?
There’s a utility called PageDefrag from Sysinternals (Microsoft) that lets you do one single task, and it does it well. It runs as a boot-time process that defragments the system files before they are locked by XP.
Thanks to Reader Shawn for suggesting this as a topic.
Defragment Your System Files
When you open up the application, you’ll see a list of the system files and the number of fragments each file is in. Select the “Defragment at next boot” option, or you could even choose to defragment at every boot, although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that.





When you reboot, you’ll be prompted by PageDefrag to hit a key if you don’t want to defragment now.





If you didn’t abort the defrag, you’ll now see the defragment in process. As you can see, mine didn’t need to be defragmented anyway…





If you selected the option to defragment on every boot but would like to remove it, you can open up the application and select “Don’t defragment (uninstall)”, and then click the OK button.





This should be an essential utility in any geek’s toolkit. Note that this isn’t a substitute for defragmenting your other files on a regular basis.


Download PageDefrag from microsoft.com

Delete Flash Cookies to Stop Web Sites from Secretly Tracking You

If you like to keep your browsing private, you probably already clear your history and cookies after a session, but your tracks are not completely gone. There’s also another type of cookie to get rid of called Flash Cookies or Local Shared Objects (LSOs). Today we take a look at how to get rid of these pesky files and improve your privacy.
What are They?
Flash Cookies or LSOs are cookie type files used by Adobe Flash Player and they save your settings and preferences when watching video on a website for better playback. They can also store unique identifiers that keep track of the sites you’re visiting. Some of them will also use the collected data to recreate regular tracking cookies even after you’ve deleted them.
Manual Settings
Note: Changing Flash Settings on the Adobe page is kind of weird, so make sure to check things carefully.
One option is to not allow the LSOs on your machine in the first place. To do this, you need to go to the Global Storage Settings panel on the Adobe site (Link Below) and make the appropriate changes. The Settings Manager on the Adobe site is not a screen shot, but is the actual panel for making changes to how Flash will behave in your browser. If you move the slider all the way to None, then when a Flash app wants to use storage space (insert a Flash Cookie) you’ll need to give it permission.







In this example I set the local storage to None, and now when I go to MySpace and try to play a song, it asks for permission to store the data.






You can also turn them completely off by moving the slider all the way down to none and check the box Never Ask Again. If you this and uncheck the box next to Allow third-party content to store data on your computer, it will keep advertiser flash cookies off your machine, but also makes many flash apps not work.





To delete existing Flash Cookies, click on the Website Storage Settings tab (located all the way to the right of the screen) and click on the Delete all sites button.





You can right-click on a Flash app on a particular page and change the settings as well. Just remember it will only apply to that app on that page, and won’t change the setting globally.







While this method works, it can be tedious and annoying, let’s take a look at some other solutions.
Delete LSOs in Firefox
For users of Firefox, there is a quality Add-on called “BetterPrivacy” which allows you to delete flash cookies after each browsing session.





After installing BetterPrivacy for the first time, go into Options and you’ll be surprised to see how many LSOs are listed.





You can go in and manage different settings like deleting LSOs on exit, application start, by timer, create a shortcut key to delete LSOs and more.





One neat option you might want to select is to add LSO item to the Firefox “Clear History” dialog which isn’t there without the Add-on.







Using CCleaner
If you use IE or any other browser, then another great option for removing LSOs is with CCleaner. By default the Flash Cookies are set to be removed, but you might want to double check to make sure. In the Cleaner section click on the Applications tab, the scroll down to Multimedia and make sure Adobe Flash Player is checked.






When you run an analysis, you will see the results, double click on Multimedia – Adobe Flash Player to see the what it found.






Depending on how much browsing you’ve done and the last time you deleted the LSOs you might be surprised how many are found. Just click Run Cleaner to get rid of them.





When you download CCleaner make sure you’re getting the “Slim” version which does NOT include an attempt to add a worthless toolbar to your machine. We have provided a direct link to the CCleaner Slim below. Another option would be to download it from ninite.com which denies installation of extra Crapware automatically
.



Rather than run CCleaner manually, you might want to check out these two articles from The Geek on running it silently via a Hotkey and automatically each night on XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

• Setup CCleaner to Automatically Run Each Night in Windows 7, Vista, and XP
• Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Run CCleaner Silently

Conclusion
For this tutorial we showed Flash Cookies on a Windows system, but they also will show up on your Mac or Linux computer as well. You will need LSOs on your computer for certain Flash Apps to work at the time you’re at the site. However, you don’t need them on your system after you’re done playing a game or listening to music. Flash Cookies are used by websites to track your browsing habits and some recreate regular cookies even after you’ve deleted them. You’ll definitely want to get rid of Flash Cookies (LSOs) if you’re concerned about online privacy. With these tips, and your regular history deletion, it will help you gain better privacy online.
Links

Adobe Flash Player Global Settings Panel


BetterPrivacy Firefox Addon


CCleaner Slim No Toolbar


Flush for OS X

Desktop Customization: Sci-Fi Icon Packs

Are you a sci-fi fan who has been looking for some great custom icons for your desktop or favorite app launcher? Then you will want to have a look through our sci-fi icon packs collection.
Over the past few months we have been showing you collections of cool desktop wallpapers that you can use to liven up your computer. Today we extend the customization collections with a series of cool icon packs for you to use for folders and shortcut icons.
Star Wars 1.0

Download
Star Wars the Icons

Download
Star Wars Vehicles

Download
Star Wars Icons

Download
Star Trek

Download
Trek Tech
Note: Contains “.png files” for use in Linux.

Download
Refresh Trek

Download
Star Trek Folders

Download
Battlestar Galactica Vol. 1

Download
Battlestar Galactica Vol. 2

Download
Battlestar Galactica Vol. 3

Download
Battlestar Galactica Vol. 4

Download
Baby Spaceships

Download
Space: 1999

Download
War of the Worlds

Download

Device Doctor is a Completely Free Driver Update Scanner

Installing the latest device drivers is an essential task for keeping your system running at peak performance, but almost all of the driver update solutions out there aren’t actually free. Thankfully, Device Doctor is absolutely, completely free to use.
Device Doctor comes in two flavors—the regular installable version, and a portable executable that you can throw on a flash drive and use anywhere. Let’s dive right in…
Using Device Doctor
This is one piece of software that couldn’t be simpler—there’s just one screen, and after clicking the Begin Scan button you should see a list of drivers that need updating. You can then click the Download update on each one to actually grab that driver.





On the download page, you’re prompted to download the driver installer and install it manually. It’s not as slick and automated as solutions from other vendors (like Driver Scanner from Uniblue, a sponsor of How-To Geek), but that’s actually one of the things we like about Device Doctor—it puts you in control of your drivers. Did we mention free?






Because there are just so many devices and drivers out there for PCs, you might find that Device Doctor points you to the wrong driver, or an outdated version—and if that happens you should make sure to report an incorrect driver with the link on the driver download page:





Since Device Doctor is still a very young software, feedback from users is very helpful, and over time the kinks will be worked out.
STOP! Before You Install Drivers!
You should always take a time-out before you install a new driver and create a System Restore point, which will enable you to quickly roll back in the case of a failure. We simply cannot state this more strongly! Here’s some walk-through articles explaining how to do so:

• Create a Restore Point for Windows 7 or Vista’s System Restore
• Using System Restore in XP

Now that you’ve done that, we can proceed.
Actually Installing the Drivers
For the actual driver installation, in some cases Device Doctor sent us to a nice, easily installable executable—just run through the wizard and you’re done…





In other cases, however, the driver was a zip file that needs to be installed manually.





We’ve already covered how to install or update a driver in Part 4 of our series about how to build a new computer, but it’s a topic we should probably cover in greater depth down the line.
To install new drivers manually, just right-click the device in Device Manager, choose “Update Driver Software” from the menu, and then pick the “Browse my computer for driver software” on the first wizard page.





The rest is pretty self-explanatory—browse to the folder you extracted the drivers, and run through the rest of the wizard.
So, How Well Does It Work?
In our testing, Device Doctor worked really well for our Windows XP test system—it found 9 drivers that needed updating, and we verified that they were indeed the correct drivers. The actual scan takes only a couple of seconds, and since you don’t even need to install the portable version, it’s not going to clutter up your system with extra nonsense.
For our Windows 7 x64 test systems, it didn’t fare quite as well, with a couple of drivers that were not correct, like this PS/2 keyboard driver, which is obviously for XP:





Since this software is still essentially in “beta”, we can forgive a few mistakes here or there, but we hope the driver checking process becomes a lot more accurate in future versions. Drivers are an essential part of Windows, and you don’t want to go with the wrong ones.
The Device Doctor people assure me that they are adding thousands of new Windows 7 drivers each week, so the problem should work itself out.
What Drivers Should I Update?
This brings up a good point—you don’t need to worry about updating every single driver on your system all the time, like that PS/2 keyboard driver we just mentioned. Here’s the drivers that we do recommend keeping updated:

• Network Card Drivers – Especially as time goes on, wireless network card drivers need to be updated for better support and reliability.
• Video Card Drivers – Every gamer knows that having updated video card drivers can be the difference between 100 and 500 nerd points. Also, better drivers make your system faster.
• Chipset Drivers – You’ll be surprised how much difference the proper SATA drivers make on system performance, or the latest motherboard drivers make when dealing with system sleep issues. Personally I grab these from the manufacturer site.
• Sound Cards – Keep them updated!

How to Check the Version of Your Installed Drivers
Updating your system drivers is all fine and good, but how do you know what version of the driver you already have installed? If you don’t want to install any more software, you can open up Device Manager, find the device in the list, and choose Properties from the right-click menu.
We’ve already explained how you can view the installed list of drivers the easy way, but it’s good to know the manual method as well.




You’ll note that on the context menu you can choose to “Update Driver Software”, which will pull down the latest Microsoft-certified drivers from Windows Update. Unfortunately, Windows Update is often way behind when it comes to driver updates, and doesn’t always carry the manufacturer drivers that sometimes add extra functionality.





On the Driver tab you’ll see the driver maker, date, and version. What you should keep in mind is that Microsoft makes their own drivers for some popular devices, but you can switch to the manufacturer driver instead, which usually is updated more frequently. This means that the current driver version won’t always have the same version numbering sequence as the manufacturer driver.
More About Device Doctor
We spoke to the guys that actually make Device Doctor, and they assured us that Device Doctor is completely free, and will continue to always be completely free. In order to pay the bills (we’re talking about a lot of bandwidth required to run their service), they have advertisements on the driver download page, but they also accept donations.
They welcome your feedback—it’s only with feedback that they can make the software better and provide a great, free service to everybody. You can report incorrect drivers on the download page, or leave suggestions on their forum—the more that everybody reports mistakes, the more accurate the detection will be in the future.


Download Device Doctor from devicedoctor.com